The Spirit Of The Workhouse Is Alive And Well In Tory Britain

As the Government pushes through increasingly savage cuts to social security, it has been ideology along with cost cutting that been at the heart of welfare reform. And that ideology is based on the very same Victorian principles which underpinned the brutal and hated system of workhouses for the destitute.

In the early 1800s unemployment soared as 400,000 demobbed soldiers returned home from the Napoleonic Wars. This led to increased spending on the patchy system of welfare made up of workhouses and ‘outdoor relief’ – goods or money distributed to the poor – which had existed funded by local taxation since the late 1500s. Spending on welfare was out of control, and tough new measures were required.

In 1834 Parliament introduced the Poor Law Amendment Act which along with abolishing outdoor relief created a new, vicious regime in the workhouse. A belief had emerged that a feckless underclass were responsible for the rise in spending on poor relief. Unemployment was seen as being the fault of unemployed people, the undeserving poor, and new laws were required to force them to work.

It is easy to see why this became a popular idea amongst the ruling classes. Any attempt at creating a low wage economy must first start with ensuring that life without wages is as horrific as possible.

Therefore the changes to the Poor Laws were based on the principal of ‘less eligibility’ which meant that somebody who was poor and out of work: “on the whole shall not be made really or apparently as eligible as the independent labourer of the lowest class.”

This meant that life in the workhouse had to be worse, or more uncomfortable, than the life of the lowest paid labourer. Workhouses were intended as a deterrent to being poor, or pauperised as it was known, through unemployment. The new regime was as much a form of social control as an attempt at relieving poverty.

When Iain Duncan Smith insists that no-one on benefits should receive more than someone in work – despite the fact that no-one does – he is echoing the principle of ‘less eligibility’. Instilling social control and and keeping wages low is every bit as important to his welfare reforms as the stated aim of bringing down the benefit bill.

The problem for the workhouses was that wages were so low that the lowest paid labourers faced desperate poverty. This problem persists today, with many of the poorest working families dependent on in-work benefits to survive. The challenge for the Victorian workhouse, and Iain Duncan Smith today, is how to create a regime so oppresive that it is worse than a life of minimum wage work and poverty.

One way to fix this side of the ‘less eligibility’ problem is to drive benefits down to near starvation levels. Some people are now left with a just a few pounds a week after the bedroom tax, council tax reform and other cuts to benefits. Others have had benefits sanctioned, leaving them with nothing at all. A horrifying social experiment in just how poor can you get away with making some of the population, is well underway.

People in the workhouse could hardly be called well fed, but they were usually provided with three meals a day – more than many struggling families on benefits can afford today. Workhouses often had healthcare and educational facilities which were not available to the poor outside. Whilst conditions varied, and in some areas workhouse inmates were subject to the most appalling conditions, there was an attempt to control nutritional standards at a national level. Other means were created to ensure that life in the workhouse was ‘less eligible’ than a life of poverty wages outside.

Reluctant to use starvation as a weapon of social control, the Victorians turned to discipline, forced labour and shame to make the workhouse regime as unbearable as possible. Inmates had to carry out ‘irksome’ work, such as stone breaking, or bone crushing. Alcoholic spirits and tobacco were banned and food was kept as plain and unappetising as possible. Inmates were forced to wear a uniform and keep to a strict time-table of work. Usually they were not permitted to leave without permission and workhouses were built to resemble prisons; austere, uncomfortable and imposing.

By far the most severe element was the break up of families. Men who found themselves destitute and condemned to the workhouse were judged to have relinquished their responsibility for looking after their family and were separated from them. As their wives and children were essentially seen as property which the men had to forsake, they were punished with this separation almost by default. This casual collective punishment of families is not unlike the current impoverishment of children when benefits are stopped or sanctioned due to the Jobcentre invented crimes of their parents. Just like today, in Victorian times when it came to punishing parents for being ‘workless’ or promiscuous, almost no-one thought of the children.

Children in the workhouse were separated from their mothers from the age of 7 and sometimes even deported to the colonies, often without the consent of their parents. It was the horror of being separated from loved ones, and the shame that this brought, that fully enshrined the principle of ‘less eligibility’ and the popular terror of the workhouse.

Whilst this kind of draconian regime might appeal to the likes of Iain Duncan Smith, there is no money to pay for it today. Workhouses were expensive, more so than the system of poor relief they replaced. Therefore different means of establishing ‘less eligibility’ for those on benefits must be found in the present day.

The endless shaming of single mothers on benefits in the national media, egged on by the DWP, has been one way to meet this goal. The benefit cap, which means forced relocation for some families away from loved ones and into cities where they may not know a soul, is another method of punishing poor parents and their children. Tellingly the benefit cap does not apply to those in full time work. This is not about saving money, but making life ‘less eligible’ for single parents, usually mothers, who are forced to rely on social security.

Workfare is one of the more obvious examples of ‘less eligibility’ – a sort of workhouse on the cheap. This in itself meets the test of the workhouse principles – working full time for benefits is ‘less eligible’ than working full time for a wage, even if only just in some cases.

Workfare doesn’t quite provide the solution Iain Duncan Smith desires however. Just like in Victorian times, the main reason for unemployment today is simply that there isn’t enough paid work for everybody to do. This was the reason workhouses could rarely turn a profit and inmates were often left doing completely pointless, if back-breaking work. Today it means workfare shrinks the amount of paid jobs available as companies use unpaid workers to cut down on wage bills. This can be permitted on a small scale and it was probably assumed it would go unnoticed. The fact that it didn’t shows workfare is not a politically or economically possible solution if applied to over 2 million unemployed people.

The realisation of this is almost certainly one reason why the proposed Community Action Programme – six month rolling periods of workfare for everyone leaving the Work Programme – has been quietly abandoned.

With neither workhouses or mass workfare being a viable solution to Iain Duncan Smith’s attempt to morally educate and eradicate the poor, his attempts at achieving ‘less eligibility’ for those on benefits are becoming ludicrous. The latest weapon in his crusade is ‘conditionality’, meaning ever more draconian conditions for receiving benefits. Claimants are soon to be expected to spend 35 hours a week endlessly looking for jobs which don’t exist. People living in smaller towns could be forced to visit the same shops, every single week, to hand in CVs – a nasty trick which not just wastes someone’s time, but ensures they are continuously shamed for being unable to find a job.

In this context, Universal Jobmatch, the new government job seeking website, could be seen as the first virtual workhouse. This website gives Jobcentre staff the ability to remotely monitor claimant’s online job-seeking activity. The idea is that claimants can now be forced to sit at a computer for hours on end, clicking through job vacancies and sending off huge numbers of applications for jobs that they may not even be qualified to do.

It does not matter that the majority of jobs on Universal Jobmatch are part time, or flaky self-employed opportunities which often require cash up front. It doesn’t even matter that many of the jobs on the website don’t even exist and are simply employment agencies fishing for unemployed people’s CVs to keep on their files. The purpose of Universal Jobmatch is not to help people find a job, but to spy on claimants to ensure they are carrying out sufficient ‘work related activity’. Instead of breaking rocks in a workhouse yard, the poor are now to be kept in poverty at home, forced to pointlessly click away at scam and spam job advertisements on the internet with the intention of making their lives as uncomfortable and boring as possible.

In Victorian times the workhouses quickly filled up with the elderly, orphans, disabled people, and the physically or mentally unwell. The non-disabled and healthy feckless poor who the workhouses were aimed at, by and large did not materialise. It’s almost as if they didn’t exist, or at least not in any great numbers. Instead it was those who were genuinely unable to work who were punished by the austere and inhuman workhouse regime.

150 years later and it is disabled people who face losing their homes due to the bedroom tax and other benefit cuts. Single parents are soon to be forced to abandon their teenage children from dawn to dusk to attend workfare or other ‘work related activity’. Those who are unemployed because there are no jobs face workfare and sanctions. Welfare reforms are not just forcing people into poverty, unpaid work, or job seeking activity that won’t help them find a job, but increasingly people are losing their homes. Less eligibility in the modern world means homelessness, not a bed in the workhouse.

And once again an onslaught on the living conditions of the poor is being justified by lurid tales of an army of feckless scroungers who no more exist today than they did when they were first used to excuse the horrors of the workhouse.

124 responses to “The Spirit Of The Workhouse Is Alive And Well In Tory Britain”

My neighbour is a Sally Ann Captain and she was telling me that the local Citadel has 4 benefits claimants working there at the charity shop and cafe and its wonderful because the officers can work flexi time and work when it suits them. She maintains its excellent work experience for them – 4 guys are 45+ and have recently been made redundant. Still smells like something from workhouse times.

@johnny its interesting to note that if am employee sleeps at the place of employment the employer can avoid paying the minumum wage…just look at chinese factories….where workers sleep on rush mats in the factory…
and of course workhouse were places where workers where they slept too..

I was on the sick and lost my Atos appeal and now find myself back on JSA. This was last month. Can I go on the sick again or is that not allowed. My anxiety is worse now than it was and I now have very bad depression. I find it hard to cope. Please advise.

cephalus..
off the top of my head, i’m pretty sure that you can…you’ll need a sick note and to ring up the e and sa claim number..see also if you can do a fast reclaim..don’t forget to tell the council of any changes if you are also claiming hb etc…do you have local welfare rights access.

I don’t know about local welfare rights. I should have as i’m in Glasgow. So in theory after a failed appeal you could go on jsa for a month and then go back onto esa? Wold the job centre not reject this.
My doctor is very helpful and encouraged me to appeal my decision the last time which I had no chance of winning anyway but anytime away from these bullies is a godsend. So right now 13 weeks off Jsa could be a lifesaver.

cephalus…get sick note send it in to jcp, you can go sick when one is on jsa..but try to get back on e and sa…i think that you should have reapplied for e and sa in the 1st instance, try to buy all the time you can..http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/

Johnny
You hit the the nail on the head I think when you said IDS is ensuring people on benefits to continuously be SHAMED for not finding work. Making them pointlessly search for hours and hours each day for jobs that are not there. That is it, he is shamming people. No one must feel shame for this diabolical situation. IDS should feel the shame I think. Also this is outrageous that people will soon have to job search in that revolting hostile centre for 35 hrs a week. How rank rotten. Well this will affect young people especially as it will take up their valuable time, interfering with their creativity and interests, that could lead them to great careers in life.

As for the single parents having to do this, well I can feel my anger bubbling up and I am going to stop here because I will swear far too much. These callous policies are causing damage to children.

jasmine..
that’s how it works..starve one, cause one to suffer cold, misery, demoralise one so one feels bad (guilt, shame, blame) about one’s self, erode self esteem, bring one down, sap one, swamp one to drain one, so all fight gone,..de-exist one..so that all is left is to blame and beat ones self up for being in this mess, cruel britannia the land of “mythical jobs and cures”, see dr bob truth..the depression is the burden of oppression…god help us all…

Overburdendonkey
We are not going to get depressed by this Authoritarian government. They are not oppressing us are they. We are refusing this, and are getting wise to their snide covert abuse, chronic scapegoating and vile propaganda. Us feckless,work shy,sick,spongeing, disabled, scroungeing, scum, are ‘all in this together’. We are supporting, and informing each other about what the feck is going on. Knowledge will save us. People must get strong. I know it will be hard because it seems to me that workfare is being disguised in another form of abuse and exploitation such as this vile 35 hrs a week in that depressing, oppressive shit hole job centre.
This tyranny stops here. Also have you noticed what they have done, and why the public are blind. They have done’ GRADUATED COMMITMENT’ its another abuse tatic. Sales men do it when trying to flog shit. People buy it. They get a foot in the door technique. Little bits of abuse tolerated, gradually working up to more and more abuse, tolerated and accepted. Is this the general public in not so great britannia today? Dr bob truth, I will check that man out.

jasmine..
if ones benefits or what ever are cut, i must buy that, and do something about it, that is how they get in and cause a stir…if they drain one, one gets exhausted by it, brought down..we are being oppressed..i am not into behaviourism…depression is caused by burden of oppression, stiff upper lip will not do..we voice our disgust at what is going on, that works…

Overburden donkey
I hate the stiff upper lip. Its vile, I was raised with that and rebelled against it and will do it again. I have felt myself hit the depression with this tyranny, but I am fighting it. Its revolting oppression, I detest it and refuse it. I have been reduced to living like a pauper and am unwell. But you are right about giving voice to this disgust, it really helps get the anger out. Inverted anger caused depression, so yes lets get it out.

I pass on information to those i know, Have educated about 3 people so far and they are educating the others they know THAT is my gift. If they want me at the job centre they HAVE to pay for travel.. so claim everything.make it cost them far more.

Iain Duncan Smith is a fucking moron for making people search for non-existent jobs 35 hours a week. If he left them alone, they might get creative and write songs or books or get ideas for a new business they’d like to set up.

The problem is that IDS has no imagination, no empathy, no soul – a truly horrendous human being.

I got a job when I decided the grief at the JCP was too much. I took my time and only applied for jobs I really wanted – none of this hitting targets business. Because of this, I put more effort and energy into my applications and also applied for different areas – I started to go for things I have a passion for, instead of retail and admin.
So you’re not far wrong there!

@nikki jayne when i was at school we had careers adviser that guided you to things that interested you..not bloody ”apply for anything’ jesus that stupid and its not being a ”jobsnob’ anyway..i think we need people who know wtf they are doing and understand the job..

the 35 hours a week was the new deal,with one day spent at a work placement.then locked up in a building all day in overcrowded cramped and under harsh conditions with often appalling treatment.

when on that programme a disabled person died at home,found when he didn’t arrive for his work placement by his brother,he to was forced to be locked up all day previously by what was then a labour government.he was clearly unwell and kept falling asleep previously,but still.

It is quite obvious that the rich are intent on replicating the 1834 and 1845 Poor Laws in order to shame and terrorise those they consider to be insufficiently deferential or grateful.

However, it also needs to be remembered that 1834 legislation was introduced for three reasons. It was a response to growing unemployment and mopped up ‘surplus labour’. A programme of infrastructure expansion (building workhouses) kickstarted a faltering economy out of recession. It was also used to suppress political dissent in the south of England following the ‘Last Labourers Revolt’.

I agree with your article …if you cut out the Uber Neo Liberal – Classic Liberalism , flimsy justification narratives , dodgy stats , glib soundbites , platitudes and hackneyed cliches out …it’s what you are left with …they quite literally aim to turn the clock back to that era and ” start again ” …in fact some of the Uber Neo Liberal rhetoric goes back to the 1700’s …look at Lord Fraud’s …whoops sorry ! Freud’s comments

Osborne philosophically , is actually to the right of the US Republican Party …….he’s gambling on some sort of recovery in 2017 and Britain being turned into some sort of South Korean Tiger Economy – ” We’ll have you working 90 hrs a week and make you damn grateful for it “

” Osborne philosophically , is actually to the right of the US Republican Party …….he’s gambling on some sort of recovery in 2017 and Britain being turned into some sort of South Korean Tiger Economy ”

Either that or there are plans afoot to celebrate the centenary of WWI next year by starting another war, always another good way of getting rid of the inconvenient masses.

You know, if I’d written that 2 years ago I’d have self-censored myself for being paranoid. Now, I’ve just come to the conclusion that anything is possible.

DWP: the evil, evil scum. If on dialysis indefinitely with no kidneys left, you can die if you don’t get a new kidney. DWP are murderers (death sentence).

DWP stopped MY dole when I was in hospital having major operation that day. They stopped JSA and HB for 4 months (no IB or IS) though I was not fit for work at all, they put me on a work scheme immediately with Working Links (I’d already been once or twice on work schemes to the same Working Links), though I wasn’t getting any money, AND I had to sign on but for no money. I used a credit card for rent and food, and it cost £1200 I’m paying back for the rest of my life. Utter Cunts, the DWP. Oh by the way I told them long in advance ‘I’m going to hospital’ and they said that was okay, and on the day of signing that was also the day of treatment, they ‘forgot’ to press the button on the computer to have me excused signing, and the computer sanctioned me. After 4 months with no income they restarted JSA/HB but did not pay any arrears legally due to me. All because they ‘forgot’ to press a key on a keyboard. Cunts. I was sent days after hospital to the work scheme and had postop complications aggravated in part by DWP, not to mention added stress. I wasn’t meant to leave the house or lift stuff, but was made to, and to carry all the work scheme bumfodder several miles. That all made me worse as I had a string of infections, tissue necrosis etc and was trying to recover from lung collapse as well. At the work scheme, they were not only trying to get me to apply for jobs (I was a zombie on useless pain meds, and they told me to stop my drugs including the ones treating infections and avoiding clots) in the state I was in, they were also trying to force me to do immediate workfare placements in jobs like construction, roadmending/drilling, paving-laying, and sewers. Um raw sewage plus seizure-prone drug zombie? raw sewage plus open infected wounds?
Honestly the whole lot of them who dealt with me, were cunts with no redeeming feature save the fact that they are mortal and biodegradeable.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant….and that is what we all must do whether we are young, old, male, female, able bodied, disabled, employed or unemployed…keep highlighting the issues so that everyone finally wakes up to what this tawdry sham government are up to which is making money for themselves and their millionaire mates!

#Tory MPs have actually told #IDS that you’d need some sort of conscription …so yes Johnny Void is right …when you strip everything down to the bone …it is 21st Century Workhouses on the cheap …this ironically is relatively ! benign and well organised …God only knows …how much it would cost in train tickets to let them go home every month now ..with the disastrous , fragmented railway privatisation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7842448.stm

Things are getting more and more desperate for so many by the day, I read so many blogs and the desperateness in so many posts is heartrending. If global events don’t overtake us and we are allowed another election in the UK in the next two years, what will they do after the next election, no matter who gets elected (they are all the same). We are truly on the brink of…The Fourth Reich.

Desperation, that about sums it up. I’m relatively lucky, my autism spectrum disorder leaves me with fairly high function in terms of mental capacity, but I have serious issues dealing with day to day living exacerbated by the social anxiety which developed from the way people with mental health issues are treated in this country thanks to the neo-liberal filth in Westminster and their happy allies in the gutter press.

I was doubly lucky in that there is a wonderful local autism support charity who were willing and able to fight my corner with the DWP, so even after ATOS’s obscene and inaccurate checklist decided I was “fit for work” I managed to get into the ESA support group on appeal.

But even that is not the blessing it might first appear, because now I live in fear. I dread hearing the letterbox in the morning in case it’s another letter from ATOS or the DWP demanding I resubmit my paperwork again and again, or which requires me to once more submit to the WCA. On the one or two days every other month where I actually feel capable of interacting with other people, I’m too afraid to go out and do anything in case they try and use that to claim that I’m “better” and chuck me onto JSA.

So yes, you’re bang on, desperation is the perfect word to sum up this atrocious regime.

I left my job in March due to a stress breakdown from working too many hours for far too long, at one point I was working a fifty hour week monday to friday followed by two 12 hour shifts in a factory at the weekends purely to earn enough money to own and maintain my own home as a single man, my only real benefit for being a single man trying to set himself up in life is a 25% reduction in council tax, if this doesn’t push people into providing more money for the private landlord tree then the government decides to introduce a minimum wage (a minimum wage that is not livable I’d add) which in turn makes lower wage value decrease with ever increase, companies don’t raise any other wages other than the minimum and in turn the shops raise their prices due to “inflation”. IDS and this government are systematically increasing the gap between the filthy rich and the poor creating the two tier victorian model, I believe it’s called Neo-liberalism and it’s incredibly scary. The one thing that really annoys me is the British people, there is only one way to change this problem, a vote of no confidence, not in the prime minister, but no confidence in the way the government is ran, We, as a people, should demand the abolition of the current status of government with their outmoded pomp and circumstance, avoiding questions and referring to the “right honorable gentleman” instead of Alan for example, we deserve a proper council, with a mixture of intellects and backgrounds, no one can deny that the country needs financial guru’s, war experts etc but the government doesn’t need to be an expert in any of these fields, there are experts all over the world working in financial institutions or within the armed forces that are more educated in the topics that most could ever dream to be, the aim of a council is to listen to the advice given by experts and make a decision based on all angles, for that we only need the right sort of minds that aren’t bias to bribes from companies and unions so my suggestion, the BBC, who still take money from people to watch tv for no reason other than the government lets them, should be forced to give free air time to anyone attempting to be in the new council, this would help to stop funding of so called politicians by companies for the purpose of advertising their political party, the only reason millions of pounds are spent winning votes is if they didn’t spend the millions no one at all would vote for them, with a little subconcious poking they get votes, I’d certainly be more inclined to vote for a normal human being with no ulterior motives and a good heart who’s able to make balanced judgement who’s interests lie in making a difference instead of making a quick buck.

The functionality of government needs to die and that will only happen if more than 50% of the country stands up and raises it’s voice for long enough, it won’t be pretty, the fat cats will fight with claws and teeth, they don’t want to be held accountable for the pain and suffering that the population has to endure because of the fight to perfect a shampoo or it’s right to heat and power it’s homes in the name of greater profits and share dividends, the newspapers will make us out to be violent protesters, as they always do, in an attempt to keep the powerful on their sides and things will get ugly but at the end of the day the government is there for the people, if the people want to change it, they can’t deny it, especially when to do so would entice civil war, stop moaning and start fighting, I for one want the government disbanded, who’s going to join me?

To Adie…
Hon as much as I agree with you there is the actuality of all government parties are one and the same.
We (the people) believe we have choice in voting in the government but, in truth there is and never was a choice, not a real one of course. The misleading `choice` is to merely choose from that of the what we are given….. there is no choice in the being given a handful to choose from.
The only way to have a real true authentic democracy is for a working man to rise up and take on all other parties.
Unfortunately the only such parties with a (so called) working man front is the BNP and like all given parties there is the fascist undertone. Note: All political parties have one….. if it`s not hate/blame the poor, it`s hate/blame the foreigners. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows the government causes destitution and will always find a scapegoat in the little people.

In truth, if I had enough faith in myself and, if I knew how to create a political party….. I would.
We need a working man/woman, who will never falter to ego and power to run this country (and a faithful party behind them) without this? this country is screwed.
Taking away Cameron and replacing him with Labour is futile. We need a working class party (a real one) with authentic working classes within it. Not Eton/Oxford/Cambridge graduates who have never lived a life without money and comfort. If anyone had the balls to start a party? I think the rise in followers would be rapid.

I am happy to undertake whatever actions are fair, in my area, to try to find work. But when you’re told to take 20 steps a week – which you have to devise, make up, and carry out – which will be judged by a junior Jobcentre clerk on a fortnightly basis as whether they are adequate or not, with a severe sanction meted out if the clerk doesn’t “feel” that you’ve “done your best” is utterly ridiculous. How can we obey the rules when the rules are different for everybody and interpreted differently on different days by different people? How can we do what is expected of us unless we’re told what is expected of us? How can we look at Universal Jobmatch every day if we live miles away from any place where we can get online for no cost and have no internet connection at home? How can we send out our CV, speculatively, to employers when a second class stamp cost 50p and afford the paper and envelopes to do so? How can we cold call employers looking for jobs when we’ve only got a PAYG mobile with a high tariff? And who are these employers we’re supposed to badger for work anyway? Do we just pluck names, addresses, and telephone numbers randomly out of the Yellow Pages?

They ask us to make superhuman efforts to find work but don’t give us any referrals or tell us exactly how to go about this task, then, after we try to do what we can to fulfil our “Jobseeker’s Agreement” they pick holes in our efforts and sanction us for the littlest thing.

Every day becomes a battle to find work or retain our right to support.

Daily life is rapidly becoming a nightmare as the Work Programme and Universal Jobmatch fail, Universal Credit crashes and burns, and all the government does is to increase “conditionality” imposed on claimants to impossible levels.

Sadly it was James Purnell and Gordon Brown that brought the private sector and David Freud into welfare provision. Liam Byrne is a slaphead hardly any better than Iain Duncan Smith – although he is much cleverer – who despises the poor hardly less than IDS and is hardly less a scourge to them or less malicious. Whoever is in government will fuck the poor, sick and needy over. They are all the same.

The requirement to spend 35 hours a week searching for work is on my Jobseeker’s agreement signed last Thursday 26 July 2013 when I made a new claim. It states and I quote: “I will actively conduct a minimum of 5 hours job search everyday & record the results in form ES4 or on Universal Jobmatch.”

Every day means Monday to Sunday because I was verbally told that I had to actively seek work for 35 hours every week. When I queried this the DWP staff member told me that they were taking into account how long it takes to fill in an application form. However, the wording of the agreement does not say “5 hours job search everyday including application form filling time”. It states “job search” only so I suppose it all depends on what they mean by “job search”. Using the word “search” and not defining their terms is pernicious. However, I will see what my “adviser” says tomorrow about it and ask directly what “job search” actually means. I will try to get it in writing via a new Jobseeker’s Agreement.

You may also be interested to know that it says on my Jobseeker’s Agreement dated 26 July 2013: “I will register on Universal Jobmatch, upload my CV & give access to DWP to my account by my adviser interview date.” Their wording is vague and I was not told what would happen if I didn’t give my “adviser” access. When I told the DWP member of staff about the scam jobs and dubious employment agencies farming candidate’s CVs on UJ she claimed to know nothing about these scams so I intend to bring this issue up with my “adviser” tomorrow because I have direct experience of it.

I just wanted everyone on here to know that, at least in my area (Yorkshire), the new 35 hours a week job search requirement has already been introduced.

Hi Absolut. I made the mistake of agreeing to phoning up at least two job vacancies a week (on top of agreeing to apply for at least six online vacancies a fortnight).
The mistake being I now have to phone up 4 job vacancies as part of my contract. Itd be okay if there were plenty of jobs happy for you to phone them, but, most demand you apply online (A `Dont hassle me, we will call if you are worthy` approach).
I now of course have to scour jobs to phone up, this is not easy and takes up alot of hours looking for jobs with phone numbers to present to my advisor (aka jobsworth bastard).
The adding of time demand is just petty and brutal. I dare not think of the what will be introduced next?

We need anyone having to phone employers specutively to say: “So & so Jobcenter asked me to ring”. Or even “So & so ‘advisor’ at so & so Jobscenter asked me to ring”.
So that the employers know where to complain to.

It’s not as if the employers are sitting there thinking ‘I wish someone would ring up so I could fill this NMW vacancy’.

I’ve looked after a reception for a few days and people ringing up all day asking if there’s any vacancies was a pain in the backside.

@elohimette when we had the labour exchanges the person there used to help with stuff like phone calls…but i guess that help isnt available now..just being mean and bullying is the order of the day i guess..

Absolut, you do not have to give access to your UJ account (nor should you – ever!). See point 82 of the UJ Toolkit:

“82. We cannot specify to a JSA claimant how they provide us with records of their jobsearch activity and Universal Jobmatch will not change this – it is not therefore possible to require JSA claimants to give DWP access to their Universal Jobmatch account. ”

Also, there are no regulations mandating you to register with UJ only to have an “online profile” (. The Welfare Reform Act 2012, chapter 2, section 17(3)(c) ). Tell them you already use several online job search websites, have uploaded a CV to them and have an email account and that should be enough.

Excellent as always JV, we know the storm is brewing. We know that one day it will be ready to burst, and that it will destroy good and bad. In every area the filth fuckwits have outdone themselves in their zeal to fuck up uk. IDS is a brutal, cruel sociopath, but this disgusting poor hater is surrounded by evil ponces, so now even the gormless pundit Clarkson says “we’re fucked”. The evil cunt IDS has misled Jo Public with mountains of shit statistics, and the whole condems have supplied propaganda. IDS must be publicly humiliated and burnt alive for the way he has meticulously set up universal credit to fail. I hope to be there to see it, but I wont be pissing on the bastard.
Workfare is a battle ground JV, but the biggest battle ground is our NHS. The disenfranchisement of the poor will create massive injustice, as the NHS is under attack from every front it cannot survive indefinitely. But its also the fault of the media, whose continuous shite have fanned the flames. Labour’s response has been pathetic, now the brilliant McCluskey and Serwotka are forming a super union and standing candidates against twats like Danczuk and Johnson. But I say bring on the class war, you fucking bunch of toffs. Maybe I will be there when the feral mob rips Grayling or Pickles to pieces. If I am fucking lucky I will throw a molotov cocktail in the front lobby of the houses of parliament.

Well said Dr Doom, what gets me is the NHS is still being called a free service yet it is and always has been paid by the working mans taxes.
To any troll wanting to jump in and claim people on benefits are not working men….. Most of people on benefits, elderly, disabled, sick, redundant, parents etc….. most have paid taxes at some point in their lives!!

Can I add here the lunacy of a supposed country in financial crisis is about to spend billions in changing ten pound notes to feature Jane Austin in place of Darwin.
As I always said, money is being freshly printed on a daily basis (hence crisp notes coming out of the bank machine)….. so if it isnt going to cost us millions? and we print out new bank notes daily? how the fuck is money disappearing into thin air?????

Back to topic….
Johnny Void, Greatly written article, I will add though, companies (esp care work companies) are starting to issue warnings of canvasing making it impossible and impersonal to apply.
I have taken my CV to both The National Autistic Society and Ellenors Hospice and, been told No CVs nor applications can be accepted in person. You have to apply via the websites.
This is truly frustrating,

dont worry there is hope… yeh right..
think of it like this, the vast majority of busness in this country is conducted by small firms, even your local costa coffee shop is a franchise ran by 1 person.
now if this 35 hr a week thing comes in, these small busnesses will be inundated with applications, for arguments sake 1500 apps, at least half if not more will be by people forced to apply and have no intrest in that job,
the poor coffee shop owner doesnt have time to sift thru 1500 aps trying to find legit people, who actually want the job, so the next time he/she want to advertise a job, he/she will steer well clear of the govts web site and just stick a sign in his window, therefore only legit people intrested will apply, saving the owner a lot of time and hassle..
the govt job site will be barren, as no small business will use it..
to much hassle for them.
im predicting this will happen sooner rather than later..
and if it does it will be better for the small business and better for the unemployed person, of course the only downside is that these jobs of more localized, so unless your walking down a high street, you might not know of there existance..

Thank you for writing this. In the historical context of Victorian Poor Laws, the workhouse and “lesser eligibility”, the aims, ambitions (purposes) of the Universal Job Snatch site are ever-more significant/difficult to ignore.

The creation and imposition of UJ on its’ unsuspecting targets (and exactly why) is all-too well explained here and it’s no less chilling than everything already written/said about it. How and why it’s such an important element in the process of befuddling and bewildering the unemployed – already facing some of the most trying/difficult times they’re [ever] likely to encounter – or so they thought – is much clearer. Viewed as an integral part of a return to greater (and more difficult to reverse?) entrenched social polarisation, it’s (even more) shocking. Many have still either seen it as ‘simply’ a way to make imposing sanctions an ever more prominent feature of their day-to-day existence, and/or thought that it’s mainly ‘just’ a badly-made (and run) version of other online job boards – which they maybe are used to and feel confident using.

From around October/November last year (& earlier for those who had heard about it before then) it seemed important to question what was being ‘offered’ (and why). UJ has probably received far more attention in the intervening months than it was ever expected to – for all the ‘wrong’ reasons (even in a time when many people’s attention is being – necessarily – focussed on other ‘welfare’ ‘reforms’).

One comment baffled me back from the start – coming from a proverbial ‘friend of a friend (a long-suffering/long-standing, apparently relatively aware/informed about what-was-about-to-be-unleashed) – DWP manager-type person’. Some levels ‘above’ their original JCP role after many years of service, & supposedly possessing some degree of knowledge of the intended aims/outcomes of UJ, universal credit et al. Somehow, the world-weary tone of the advice/comment seemed to support their alleged level(s) of knowledge – particularly now, 9/10 months on). Their comment/’advice’ (indirectly given), was “Not to worry too much about UJ – it’s going to be the least of [your] worries …”. Although it sounded ominous, and was confusing – this piece of advice was relayed to me in the weeks following the first JCP conversation in which a JCP ‘adviser’ stated that the UJ site would allow ‘advisers’ to view ‘job seekers’ online job searches/activities. When I raised metaphorical eyebrows about this, the justification became, “It’s not something I would worry about – for example look at the number of CCTV cameras that are all along the street outside this building – so why should it be an issue?”

Curiouser and curiouser. Then, it was looking/sounding and feeling like an Orwellian ‘Brave New World’ was just around the corner – but any links to Charles Dickens-esqe sub-plots were not as clear. They are now..

@shirleynott ““Not to worry too much about UJ – it’s going to be the least of [your] worries …”. Although it sounded ominous, and was confusing – this piece of advice was relayed to me in the weeks following the first JCP conversation in which a JCP ‘adviser’ stated that the UJ site would allow ‘advisers’ to view ‘job seekers’ online job searches/activities. When I raised metaphorical eyebrows about this, the justification became, “It’s not something I would worry about – for example look at the number of CCTV cameras that are all along the street outside this building – so why should it be an issue?”

yes that WOULD bother me..i wonder where that person got their info from..added to the facvt that callmedaves new idea is to crack down on porn on the net (yes amnd what else?) especially as some political blog sites are considered ‘mature content’ and have been blocked..this does not bode well…

@bob, I know what you mean. My post was a bit waffle-ish though – not wanting to scaremonger/over-dramatise (there’s no need to, is there?). The JCP adviser was, I think, saying what must have been one of the ‘recommended to explain UJ access box should people query it’ examples to use (CCTV cameras). Other people were told, for eg., that ‘there’s something called ‘Facebook’ (?) that’s used all the time – to allay early-on feelings of foreboding about proposed 2-way online access site.

The ‘inside comment’ – I’m kind of still none-the-wiser about – but it sort of makes sense now in other ways. 10 months later & UJ is here in all its g(l)ory detail – it seems to have been categorically wrong to give out (supposedly friendly/helpful) advice that “UJ is nothing worth worrying about” – it so clearly was/is. They said it was “relatively” not the biggest worry though, and this might have been no more than a reference to Universal Credit/35 hour per week job search and the various other increases in conditionality which seem to be coming thick & fast – maybe they were even alluding to all the ‘extras’ (mandatory work experience/work programme etc., changing/increasing conditionality for people with children as they knew these were all on the increase and more established since my last time of needing to sign on & even sanctions – as these were less evident 3/4 years ago when on income support for a time). So I don’t think it’s anything more sinister than all those that I was being ‘warned’ about – then again …

I
I noticed someone say that they made a mistake of agreeing to phone two employers a week. I made the same mistake but my jobseekers agreement says phone at least 2 employers a week so in effect they could just be just checking if any vacancies are available so yellow pages would be handy. I am supposed to write to three employers a week but I was told this can be by email so I can search around the internet looking for email contacts and asking if any vacancies are available. I am also supposed to look on Universal Jobmatch for jobs at least 7 times a week. I also consented it seems to allowing Jobcentre Plus to send my CV to prospective employers even by email. I also have to look through the local newspapers.I’m approaching my late fifties but 66 is the age for me to be able to retire. It will probably be at least 70 for anyone in their twenties.

It isn’t, unless a JCP advisor ‘reasonably’ suspects that a claimant isn’t doing enough to seek work. It also remains a fact that no claimant has to allow JCP access to their UJM account.

However, it is being made to look as if it’s mandatory to sign up, and certainly there are plenty of people coming on here asking about the matter. The DWP sowing misinformation on this would be one thing, but there seems to be many on our side too putting it about, (or at least not challenging the veracity of the claim) that it’s a compulsory element of claiming JSA when it isn’t.

How many people, I wonder, used the consent.me.uk standard letter to withold consent to the DWP or Workfare providers from sharing their personal information? The amount of ignorance is worrying, as is the readiness to believe what JCP advisors say as gospel. Sadly the consent.me.uk website is now ‘archive only’ and will not be updated, (due to lack of funding/confusion over funding) but there is still some useful stuff on there, including the withholding/withdrawl of consent letter.

@sibrydionmawr what i find most puzzling is that if it was compulsory to use UJM and sign the box then it would mean in effect that home pc owners would be compelled to use UJM in their home on their own pc’s AND be monitored by jcp/dwp which i find quite alarming really..imagine being told off by a jobsworth because you visited facebook or read your email instead of the ‘looking for non existent jobs’ whilst on your own computer..

It is very alarming Bob. The whole surveillance thing is extremely worrying, and even more so because of the widely held belief that if you do no wrong you have nothing to fear. CCTV is even more pervasive in our lives than ever before, and with the ‘nothing to fear’ idea so widespread there will be many for who will regard state surveillance of online activity as ‘legitimate’ as if we are doing nothing wrong… But that presupposes that there is some kind of objective definition of right and wrong. (Which there isn’t beyond the the kind of natural laws e.g. the Ten Commandments. I’m an agnostic, so have no religious commitments there, they just make good sense, but read them and think about them – nothing really objectionable there) Cameron has recently come out all angry about violent online porn, and to be sure I’m no friend of that, but I wonder what the subtext is? To be sure, anyone in their right mind would be opposed to violent online porn, but thereby hangs a problem, no-one has so far successfully defined what porn actually is, and to a large extent it is subjectively defined. I also strays into the area of censorship, which is what this is all about, it’s not about violent porn at all, (if it makes money, under capitalism it’s seen as ‘good’, isn’t it?) but about creating a premise on which to legislate, as one previous poster put it, graduated commitment towards acceptance of surveillance as a ‘normal’ part of life, after all, if we do no wrong, what do we have to fear?. Any such legislation is bound to be widely framed, and most certainly to fail in it’s allegedly intended aim. It’s most likely that the excuses for humanity who are into violent porn will use the dark areas of the Deep Internet, an area where no legislation would have any effectiveness, and could only really be stopped by cutting us off from the internet entirely, which is the situation in North Korea and is planned by the Iranian government, (North Korea has a national intranet, and that’s the kind of thing planned by the Iranian government).

@sibrydionmawr “It’s most likely that the excuses for humanity who are into violent porn will use the dark areas of the Deep Internet”
do you mean ”darknet” of where even the FBI has not been able to crack…and only hacking groups so far have only been able to penetrate..its because you cant locate where the end user and server is based…

Yes, I do mean that Bob, thanks – I get confused at times, thanks, but there is also the Dark Internet which is something different, but equally capable, if not more so for nefarious purposes of all kinds.

As we know, government agencies are often not the best when it comes to hacking the web, as evidenced number of teenage geeks having their collars felt for hacking the Pentagon. As for anonymous surfing, been around for years, and is available to everyone:

I read an article a few years ago on the Indymedia http://www.indymedia.org.uk/ site that went into the practicalities of using TOR and in theory it would be possible to trace someone’s browsing habits, but in practice so unlikely as to be an extremely minimal risk.

@sibrydionmawr yeah i read about the darknet a short while ago ..it was to do with anonymous hacking child porn sites on darknet…the reason i was looking into it was because i saw an advert in the guardian which depicted anonymous as some some evil threat to business..despite the fact that they hacked the child porn sites on darknet..so that bothered me somewhat in fact ive posted up a video on youtube about it if anyone wants to see it…

@elohimette “Can I add here the lunacy of a supposed country in financial crisis is about to spend billions in changing ten pound notes to feature Jane Austin in place of Darwin.” may i correct you..this was in response to the fact that the BoE were not going to allow pictures of women on banknotes…there was a campaign to complain about that..

I know Hon, but, my point is, we need no changes in something that will cost money to do. As a woman, I truly care not if the BOE are being sexist/misogynistic and no one should if it comes down to cost in a financially crucial time.
Im merely pointing out spending on changing notes is futile

To Bobchewie….. that last comment came out wrong. What I am saying is, `we all know everyone in power is in hatred of the little people, women are a part of being lesser in such a situation. The changing of a picture into a woman is pointless beyond belief and nothing more than yet another laugh in yer face antic….. pretend the little people have won getting a womans face on a note (there is a woman on the fiver btw)….. yet all the while laughing at us fighting for a spending spree that screws the benefit claimant even more.

@elohimette all i know is that campaign was put together because…the BoE were claiming they were not allowing images of females on bank notes in fact it was bit more serious than that…i may be wrong but i think it involved threats being made to a woman on twitter…

Great post JV. The problem with the ‘less eligibility’ rule with the workhouse system, was that it didn’t work. Bad though the system was, as well as expensive, the fact remained that the poorest of workers in employment were literally starving. And though the workhouse system was designed to replace outdoor relief it in fact never did, as the kind of poverty it was supposed to ‘alleviate’ was far greater than could be provided through the workhouses. In the period known as the ‘Hungry Fotrties’ (there was a widespread trade recession in the 1840s) not only did the workhouses increasingly deny relief to workers on the tramp in search of work by reclassifying them as vagrants, and as such therefore subject to the criminal law, (vagrancy was outlawed in earlier ‘welfare’ legislation under Henry VIII in 16th Century) there was also the factor of thousands of Irish people attempting to flee poverty and starvation due to the so called Potato Famine, (a famine that really only affected the potato, as there was plenty of food in Ireland at this time, as corn and beef exports at the time confirm. However, these foodstuffs were beyond the means of most ordinary Irish workers). The Irish workers would be persuaded to undercut the wages of Welsh, English and Scottish workers, leading to tensions and further increasing levels of poverty.

Little has changed, and certainly not the rhetoric. Universal Credit is IDS’s attempt at a New Poor Law Amendment Act, and equally it will be hugely expensive project that will fail to deal with the perceived problem as it seeks to place the responsibility for all social and economic ills on the the poor, the sick and the unemployed culpably failing to recognise the reality which is:

@sibrydionmawr ..did you catch the Times today? headline reads as follows ”Clampdown on right to challenge new laws”

ministers are planning a new assault on what they condemn as the ”growth industry” of time wasting judicial reviews in the courts.
They say that pressure groups, campaigners and lobbyists are abusing the procedure for public relations purposes, clogging up the courts and delaying the implementation of policy..

oh dear theres that democracy getting in the way of goverment doing what it does best which is funnelling large tons of money into their donors bank accounts…whatever next? jobless actually bein treated with respect for a change,,, no we cant have that now can we?

No Bob, I didn’t see the Times today (and since the late 80s stunt where it was given away free that time during a national newspaper strike, I’ve sort of trained myself to avoid it… along with anything else from the Murdoch empire) but shall take a look online.

Hardly a huge surprise really, as successive governments have taken it upon themselves to make things a little easier for themselves by using legislation to clamp down on dissent. But it is essentially an extremely foolhardy move as they are effectively removing what little of a safety valve there is. I’m far from convinced that democracy really ever existed here in the UK, except in a very illusory way, and elections aren’t even lotteries any more, at least in the old days we had the prospect of voting in a government that promised to prevent the capitalists from exploiting us more than the Tories did, and would perhaps tell the capitalists to behave themselves a bit, but we don’t even have that now since Tony the Tory chummied up with the likes of Murdoch & Co.

This government may be winning a few battles, but I wouldn’t bet on an outcome where they win the war. Not only is it too early to call, but there is a huge movement of opposition in the making… it’s not going to be a sudden uprising, but you may have noticed that there is the development of many seemingly dispirate, apparently single-issue groups focussed on issues, they all have one thing in common, opposition, not just to the Tories, but to the whole economic system. Most such groups have connections with many other groups, thus we have groups like Bread Not Bombs that has links, through those people involved with that to other groups such as the various anarchist and anti-capitalist groups and unions like the IWW and IWA. It will take time for these groups to reach ‘critical mass’ but considering stupid pieces of retrogressive legislation like you’ve pointed out will surely hasten things along a bit.

As many of us know, using the legal system is the ‘legitimate’ way of challenging bad government, but if they make laws to prevent such legal challenges, then all the government will have done is to have removed the legal avenues – opposition to bad government or legislation itself will not go away, merely take on a different form of expression.

@sibrydionmawr yes i agre with you however the ‘war’ is being fought in the MSM and yes even online …the power of public opinion..look at the recent stuff despite all the efforts to clarify the real sitiuation with benefit claimants people still believe the MSM that ”ALL” benefit claimants are better off than working people despite evidence to the contrary..now why is this? are the people not all online or do they only watch TV and read the Daily hate-mail? why does this view persist ? ..to be honest i could not imagine a typical middle class ‘striver’ joining an anarcho syndacalist collective some how….in fact any form of protest would be an anethema to them..as its tainted with scruffy oik status…

It all goes full circle. The workers get pissed of with their rights being eroded so unions are created, then governments of all coloures gradually bring in laws to erode those rights so people turn again to unions.

Anyone who stands up for the working and non-working class are castigated by this government. They have told doctors to keep their noses out of policy making and atos, they have told religious leaders they cannot voice their opinions on people’s poverty, yet it has been left to the religious again to step in because government have taken away hard fought for statutory benefits, union rights and recourse to the justice system.
It is now trying to shut us lot up on the internet for voicing our opinions and reporting on the lies being told by the dwp and ministers, which the press and media seem loathe to do.
They have even tried to curtail peaceful demonstrations, so the only way is for non-peaceful direct action against the criminals running the country for a minority.

@sibriydionmawr yeah i think we need a few more techies on here..literally taken evidence based means exactly that but in software terms…..fucknows…unless its data checking ie ”is this the right address” oh lets see if it matches on another database..??endless cross checking..

Let’s speak a few plain facts. Because of technological progress, the number of jobs in the UK is reducing by a large factor each year. This is accelerating with more and more jobs lost to increasingly high tech implementation. each year. This will continue, year on year, and most often, firstly affects low order jobs by automation, and secondly requires more very highly qualified hi tech supervisors. Overall this greatly depresses the jobs market for lower paid and middle paid work. The Government are only too well aware of this fact. But how can they force people to try to seek NON EXISTENT jobs? Well they simply bury their heads in the sand and deny that all these jobs are now non-existent. I dread to think what will happen to suicide rates as more and more people DESPAIR of finding work even after FORCED 35 hour weeks of trying for NOTHING. If there is NOTHING THERE by simple logic, NOTHING will be found however hard people look..

The economy took a down-turn while firms sourced global supply chains via the Internet. They now source supplies as cheaply as possible world-wide, often manufacture and assemble abroad.leaving only design and sometimes sales in the UK. this globalisation is continuing and driving away more and more low and middle paid jobs. In the plainest of English, JOBS ARE NOT THERE across most of the UK away from large cities and the South-East. And this situation is worsening EACH YEAR.

Big business has never had it better. But they will only pay low wages and impose poor or very poor conditions of employment.

The Government trying to force people to look for and find NOTHING is cynical, extremely callous and totally cruel in every extreme.

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